Y2K
by nicayal
Summary: What's a high school sophomore to do when "it's the end of the world as we know it"? For Hayner, it kind of just depends on how annoying Roxas' Internet conspiracy theorizing gets by the time the clock strikes midnight. AkuRoku, SoRiku, Hayner/Olette two-shot. Hayner, Riku, Roxas POVs.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N** : Feel free to read these characters' verbal exchanges in the thickest Minnesotan accents you can mentally summon; I couldn't bring myself to write out 'you betchas' and assorted 'dontcha knows' more than a few times before the literary snob in me started grimacing (he says, as a native, ex-pat Minnesotan, heh).

 **Prompt** : Y2K (please tell me people know what this is, please don't make me feel ancient having to explain it)  
 **Main pairing** : Uh. It was supposed to be AkuRoku, but it somehow turned into a mashup of that, SoRiku, and a generous helping of Hayner/Olette (wtf)  
 **Rating** : T (but it really should be N, because Roxas is a big huge Internet NERD in this one)  
 **Prompter** : silvermyth (o hai again)

* * *

The world as they knew it was set to end on a Saturday, or at least that's what Roxas was claiming. Hayner had his doubts. Personally, the assertion felt a tad melodramatic.

Maybe it had something to do with the ice skating. Maybe all that exposure to glitter, all the flowery arm movements, and anguished, dying swan full-body overtures had threaded their way into Roxas' subconscious and made worrying about World Wide Web urban legends a nervy trait of a certain Midwest tenth grader's personality.

'Cause, c'mon, the new millennium's tech-driven version of D-Day? Yeah, right. More like a major psyche-out scare tactic, from Hayner's vantage point.

He'd humored Roxas with as much attention as he could spare between mountains of sophomore year homework and after-school hockey practice — not to mention that _thing_ he was still trying to figure out with Olette since Sadie Hawkins a few weeks back. With Roxas, at least, he figured it might do the trick just to be present for the act of backing up all the files for his website on two forms of storage. (USB microdrive and CD-RW, Roxas had intoned with a level of reverence usually reserved for ELCA post-sermon potlucks, not that Hayner knew what either term meant, or what Pence's mom had put in last Sunday's nausea-inducing hot dish, for that matter.)

Once Roxas had completed that hours long task, once he'd carefully slipped the last silvery disc into a zip-up CD storage case, they could resume focus on something more interesting with the remainder of their winter break free time.

Except not, because as Hayner was quickly learning, Roxas was borderline obsessive when it came to anything Internet-related.

And it'd been so much worse since he'd first heard about that virus, or bug, or whatever the heck was supposed to happen the moment the 90s ceded sovereignty to the aughts approximately seven hours from now. As Hayner drove onto the street that led into Roxas' subdivision, he couldn't help but feel that those interim hours were going to be make-or-break for his own tenuous grip on sanity when it came to that particular subject.

"What's the big deal anyway?" Hayner'd recently made a mistake in asking. "So a few computers glitch out because they think next year is 1900 instead of 2000. Who gives a flying flip?"

Roxas had looked at him as if he'd just announced Princess Diana's rise from the dead, and as a flesh-eating vampire-zombie hybrid, no less.

"Do you have _any_ idea how much we rely on computers and other technology for pretty much every aspect of our lives?"

Hayner really didn't. He'd gotten a cell phone for Christmas, and it was kind of convenient for making calls, he supposed. But since Roxas refused to use his own Christmas-gifted Nokia to text him, since he'd been stubbornly claiming AOL Instant Messenger was far superior to a clunky mobile phone keyboard, it'd mostly served as a way for his parents to keep tabs on him when he was out of the house — not exactly what he'd call desirable.

He also hadn't been in the mood to argue with Roxas, or even to make fun of his nerdy website hobby. He'd just as quickly stopped being an active participant in the ensuing conversation, had tuned out at right about the exact moment Roxas had started describing the work he'd put into his latest site build. At one point, Hayner heard a biting remark about Netscape, a few high praises for the vast superiority of Internet Explorer. Then he was back to nodding dumbly, to thinking about hockey practice, while Roxas started up about something else that was way outside of his realm of general computer knowledge.

Really, Hayner had no idea how his friend had become such a nerd. It's not like Roxas was ugly or anything, not even socially awkward compared to some of their classmates. They'd gone to the same private day school since kindergarten, called most of the same people friends too, so it wasn't like a disparate environmental influence, or whatever. As far as Hayner could tell, Roxas had been fine until his parents had gotten a personal desktop computer and second phone line mid-way through ninth grade last year. Then, suddenly, it was Geocities website this, or HTML markup that, and drawn-out monologues comparing the pros and cons of AOL IM versus ICQ.

It wasn't even like Roxas' parents were that big on technology themselves to encourage his stupid fixation. Both were, like, dentists or oral surgeons, or something equally uninteresting.

As Hayner paused at a stop sign a block away from his pickup destination, he scanned the homes around him without much interest in scrutinizing. Each house was familiar, developer-built, cookie cutter. The same went for his own lake-facing community, for pretty much any of the upper middle class neighborhoods that lined this side of the sprawl of their suburban Midwest town. His home was close enough that Roxas could have technically walked over; having just gotten his license and being the sole person among his friends in possession of a four-wheeled vehicle bestowed upon Hayner the default honor of toting everyone else around, however.

Plus, it was well below freezing, one of those twenty degree days that felt closer to zero thanks to an unforgiving windchill that this part of the country was infamous for.

It also didn't hurt that he felt like a total badass driving around town in his new Dodge Durango. Newsflash: freedom from lack-of-license house-arrest was bliss.

As he pulled into his Roxas' driveway, Hayner parked but didn't turn off the ignition while reaching for his cell phone. Might as well keep the car warm while he waited for his friend to grace him with an appearance.

He dialed Roxas' private line, fiddling with the stereo until he found a station playing a song that didn't totally suck, phone rising to his ear as he waited for the call to go through.

He was greeted by a sound so static-horrible Hayner was surprised his ears hadn't started bleeding as a form of physical protest. He dropped the call a second later with an exaggerated grimace and, banking on Roxas having his cell phone off or on silent, typed in another string of digits, this time to the main home landline's number.

Roxas' mom picked up after a handful of rings, her voice considerably more soothing than the fax-on-crack noisy dialup his eardrums had just been assaulted with.

They exchanged standard greetings, then Hayner got down to his main reason for calling.

"Can you let Roxas know I'm waiting outside? I tried his line but he's not picking up."

"Of course," was the answering response. "He's in his room, but probably on the Internet. Just a moment. I'll tell him you're waiting."

The Internet. Shocker. He never would've guessed.

Fingers thrumming against the top of his steering wheel, he hummed along to "Wonderwall", then the beginning of a Wallflowers song that was being abusively overplayed by virtually every radio station in the greater Twin Cities metro area before his friend finally appeared.

Bundled in a Columbia ski jacket, nose tucked beneath its fleecy collar, Roxas made his way from his house's front porch toward Hayner's car, taking care to watch where he stepped. Even so, he ended up having to check his balance a handful of times in light of the ice that glittered in the last vestiges of afternoon sunlight, twinkling crystalline veins amid a layer of packed dirt and snow along both driveway and sidewalk.

By the time he made it around to the passenger side door and swung himself up into the Durango's leather bucket seat, his fair complexion was flushed pink care of a godawful Minnesota windchill, brows furrowed in sharp diagonals that nearly converged at the bridge of his nose.

Lowering the radio volume, Hayner glanced at his friend while shifting the SUV into reverse. "What up?"

Roxas shrugged in response.

As he pulled out of Roxas' driveway, Hayner suppressed the urge to eye roll. Apparently the prospect of a New Year's Eve party had done nothing to lighten his friend's mood. Gee, this was gonna be a blast if Roxas was going to spend the night sullen and glowering while the rest of them were trying to enjoy themselves.

Determined to get his friend talking, maybe even into a less fatalist frame of mind while he was at it, Hayner launched into what by all accounts amounted to an over-explanatory ramblefest.

"Gonna pick up Pence first, then Olette."

A light flush crept up into his own cheeks at the mention of his …girlfriend? Did she count as that? Hayner wasn't really sure. Nevertheless, he was grateful for the cover of cold weather, even Roxas' enduring inattention, to an extent. He wasn't in the mood to talk relationships, especially with someone who was surrounded by mostly girls every skating practice but hadn't shown even an ounce of eagerness to start dating. That, despite seemingly plenty of interest coming from more than one of them. When it came to boasting anything worth knowing about the mystery teenage girls engendered, they were both pretty much on the same level playing field — or sheet of ice, as it were. Even if he'd been in a better mood, Hayner figured Roxas wouldn't be much help in that regard.

"And then we'll head back to my place for pizza and games until it gets closer to midnight," Hayner forged on, expression set and determined not to overthink the business with Olette. "We've got the whole house and backyard. Mom and Dad are going to their own party at the Almasy's, which kinda sounds like torture to me, but whatever."

When that garnered no response, Hayner stole another look at the passenger seat. Eyes still down, Roxas had pulled in his elbows, shoulders scrunched and hands in front of him as he fiddled with his cell phone's various clock face display options. Eyes back on the road, Hayner forced himself to let a frustrated sigh die in its infancy, but just barely.

"This thing is so useless."

His gaze flickered to Roxas for context.

"What, the phone?"

"Yeah." He could hear the frown in Roxas' tone. "It's, like, one of those tech ideas that will never catch on. The signal's awful, texting is clunky and takes forever, plus it's heavy as sin."

Having virtually no opinion on cell phones one way or the other but eager to keep Roxas talking, Hayner did his best at offering an adequate response. "I guess, yeah. At least they're smaller than the last ones my parents bought. Those looked like military-grade walkie-talkies."

When Roxas didn't respond to his comment, both boys lapsed back into silence as Hayner pulled out onto a small county road on their way to Pence's house.

Clicking through the handful of radio stations that generally had song lists he found more or less tolerable, Hayner gave up after the awful realization that all of them were currently playing an ear-bleeding combo of Britney Spears, Savage Garden, and Ricky Martin. With a resigned sigh for real this time, he shut the stereo off with a bump of his index finger knuckle and tried to come up with another topic that'd get Roxas talking again.

"How's skating going?"

Making a disgruntled noise at the back of his throat, Hayner heard Roxas smack his hands and cell phone against the tops of his Levi's-clad thighs and slouch down further.

"The season ended when I didn't qualify out of Sectionals, remember?"

Oh, right. How he'd managed to forget about that when he'd actually been in attendance, had actually seen Roxas take a fluke fall on a jump that he could usually do in his sleep, was beyond him. He also remembered Roxas being righteously furious at himself over it. In retrospect, bringing up skating hadn't been the brightest of ideas.

Unaware of Hayner's _ex post facto_ regret, Roxas continued his mini-rant. "Now it's just a bunch of pointless club competitions, my coach making me stay at Novice for another year when I should be testing up to Junior, and feeling like a loser because of that story the local papers ran before Mids about me going to Nationals."

Ah, heh, wow. Yeah, that was the epitome of insensitive now that Hayner took a minute to think about it.

Relating it back to hockey, there was pretty much always another game on the roster to look forward to when his team screwed up or lost a match, along with the coaching team's confidence in their ability to improve over the course of an entire season. And usually, the entire team accepted the consequences when one person botched something. A singles skater like Roxas, though. Well. Hayner supposed it must totally blow to be the exclusive focus of a small town's expectations, along with the associated disappointment when you failed to live up to them.

"My bad," he offered, before turning into Pence's front drive. In contrast to Roxas, Pence was ready and waiting and already heading out the front door before he could shift gears to park. Much like the pair of them, Pence was outfitted in a thick winter coat, dark tufts of hair sticking out at odd angles from beneath a large fleece headband, fashion be damned in favor of just trying to keep warm.

"Not like it matters anyway." Roxas scoffed. "If everything goes to hell in a handbasket tonight, skating's gonna be the least of my worries, don'tcha think?"

Mercifully, it was at that moment when Pence opened the door to the Durango's back seat and trundled on in, complaining with unmitigated disdain about the bite in the air making his nostrils frost up for long enough that Hayner found himself conveniently not having to respond to Roxas.

Olette was up next, just a few doors down from Pence. As soon as Hayner parked, Roxas hopped out of the car without a word and re-entered through one of the back doors to give Olette the honor of sitting shotgun.

Considering the awkward 'is it or isn't it' status of their current relationship, Hayner didn't know whether to thank Roxas or consider the options for his friend's painful demise.

More frustrating still, Olette was acting like her usual bubbly self, making it impossible to get a read on her one way or another. And Hayner had zero inclination to ask anything even remotely Sadie Hawkins-associated with two other friends present. For the time being, he guessed he was at an impasse.

As Hayner headed back toward his home, conversation turned from weather to school sports teams, hockey in particular, since Hayner was a JV forward, Olette a cheerleader, and Pence an avid sidelines fan and occasional action photographer for the school newspaper. Roxas was usually pretty open to hockey talk too, although it'd have been hard for an outsider to tell today, given the current radio silence from his side of the back seat.

Eventually, Pence picked up on it and decided to intervene, twisting to look at Roxas from the seat adjacent him.

"Sora's coming too, right?"

Brows rising in exasperation, Roxas glanced sideways but didn't turn his head. "Doesn't he always?"

In an exaggerated motion, Pence threw his hands up, mittened palms facing out. "I was just checking. Don't go shooting the messenger."

"It looks like he's already here, actually." As Olette spoke up, Hayner's skin prickled with unidentifiable heat. Unaware of the effect her voice was having on him, Olette pointed toward the car visible and idling at the curb next to Hayner's house. "I think I see Kairi and Selphie and some others with him too."

Roxas didn't respond. Once relatively close, he and his cousin had grown apart seemingly the moment Sora had chosen hockey over figure skating after becoming one of the youngest students to make their school's varsity team. At the time, Roxas had insisted the decision had very little to do with the evolving distance between them. Still, Hayner couldn't help but feel it at least had plenty to do with Roxas' newfound aloofness, in his increasing reliance on Internet message boards for the purposes of social interaction. It could even have been the catalyst for his growing disenchantment with this whole competitive ice skating business, for all Hayner knew. Whatever the case, and despite Roxas' insistence that nothing had changed, it was pretty obvious Sora's switch in exclusive sports participation focus was affecting more than just his cousin, even if just indirectly.

Or it might've been that Roxas had seemed to hate Riku, another varsity team member Sora'd started hanging out with, from the moment they'd been introduced a few months back. That too.

Pulling up into the driveway, Hayner hit the garage door opener, noting the small army of students hopping out of Sora's car in the short interim between pressing the button and rolling to a stop within the two-car garage's concrete confines. Sure enough, Riku was among their numbers.

Personally, he'd never figured out why Roxas had decided to take such a royal dislike to the guy, unless Roxas knew something about Riku that he didn't, which Hayner doubted. A year ahead of them, Riku was popular among his classmates, but not obnoxiously so like some of the rest of that crowd. He was also a double threat in terms of athleticism, playing football during fall trimester, varsity ice hockey each winter, which majorly upped his chances of getting a scholarship to play in college, not that any of them really needed the financial incentive. Their parents all made decent enough money for them to attend the town's private day school, and most had reserves saved up to pay for college. Riku's parents in particular had spent bucketloads to adopt him as an infant from some country half a world away, at least if what Hayner's mom had once claimed happened to be true. Information most wouldn't consider relevant, or even all that fascinating, it was the nature of small town locals to root out any information of even the most questionable interest level for gossip-prone, stay-at-home mothers to over-analyze when the subject of focus wasn't within earshot. Hayner's mom was no different in this respect.

Being on the JV team, Hayner hadn't had much opportunity to talk with Riku personally, but the guy seemed nice, and it was kind of cool that he was chill enough to be down about attending a sophomore New Year's Eve party when he'd probably gotten a ton of other invites. In Hayner's view, it was Roxas who was being unreasonable and not wanting to play nice.

Sora's group was approaching, making their way carefully up the driveway to avoid slipping on glare ice beneath the recently shoveled snow. Eyes still glued to his phone's digital read-out with wariness bordering on straight-up paranoia, Hayner momentarily ignored Roxas, brushing past him on his way to greet the new arrivals.

"Dang, you fit a lot of people in that car of yours, didn't ya?"

"You betcha." Sora offered a grin. "Selphie ended up having to sit on Wakka's lap but it works out pretty decent, at least on shorter trips."

Hayner returned the grin with a smile of his own, noting that while most of Sora's entourage had started conversing with his own three friends, Riku had stopped short, was now standing slightly behind Sora.

Glancing up and over Sora's shoulder, Hayner was quick to acknowledge him. "Hey there."

Riku, in turn, inclined his head, responding back with a one word greeting of his own.

Sora looked between the two, obviously pleased that Hayner didn't seem to harbor the same dislike for his new teammate that Roxas was still apparently hellbent on maintaining. Gaze traveling toward his cousin who was standing a few steps apart from the rest of the group, his expression turned hesitant.

"How's ...er, things?"

Although Hayner had a hunch as to what Sora was asking about, he shrugged, made the gesture as noncommittal as possible. Roxas might've been getting on his last nerve with his most recent sour attitude and Internet conspiracy theories, but they were still best friends. That meant not ragging on him to others, no badmouthing either, not even to a concerned family member.

"Not bad," he offered instead. "Had a week off from hockey practice just like your team, got some good Christmas presents." He retrieved the Nokia phone from his pocket, and flashed Sora and Riku a quick view of it.

Although Sora's expression fell for an instant, it was quickly replaced by a polite smile. "Oh, cool. Yeah, I really like the one my parents got me. It's great for texting."

I wouldn't know, Hayner thought, thinking of Roxas' patent refusal to use the device for its proper purpose and the fact that neither Olette nor Pence had cell phones of their own yet.

He nodded instead, echoed the sentiment, then turned, beckoning them over toward the door that would lead them into his home. Taking note, everyone else soon followed. Despite his best efforts, Hayner couldn't help but see the portentous look Roxas was still sporting, all the while eyes fixed down, fingers still clutched tightly around the cell phone he was holding like his life depended on it.

The world probably wouldn't end tonight, technologically or otherwise, Hayner figured. Roxas' social life though? As far as he was concerned, that was something that hung far more tenuously in the balance.

o - o

Despite his concerns, the night wasn't going as badly as Hayner had anticipated. Between Sora and Kairi, plus Olette and Selphie, there was more than enough bubbly enthusiasm to counter Roxas' foreboding silence. Riku, Tidus, and Wakka were also easy conversationalists when it came to anything related to high school sports, with Pence occasionally supplementing.

The generous delivery order of pizza and wings, of multiple-liter bottles of heavily caffeinated pop, also hadn't hurt. It was hard to be a pill while stuffing your face with the best pizza in the south metro.

True to their word, his parents had by and large left them alone, having paid for the delivery food, then made their way out of the house for their own New Year's Eve festivities. That'd left their group with time to spare, with a few hours to play Apples to Apples, then a game of Truth or Dare. That had mostly just involved stupid truth questions since no one had any good ideas about dares to play indoors beyond the usual spin the bottle tropes of boy-kissing-girl that it'd been quickly decided they'd all outgrown freshman year.

It was Riku who suggested they venture out onto the lake.

In retrospect, it probably hadn't been the most inspired idea. Good old reliably bone-chilling Midwestern windchill had driven the temperature down even more than the thermometer read-out was indicating, and there was nothing all that fun about traipsing around after dark, shin deep and caking your jeans in crunchy snow, just to get to another sheet of ice when everything from the nearby sidewalks to his home's wrap-around driveway similarly qualified.

Be that as it may, the moment Olette got on board, the mere instant she turned to him with an enthusiastic flutter of lashes and her trademark luminous smile, Hayner knew he was screwed for suggesting a warmer, indoor alternative. He was a little too busy managing the head rush of confusing emotions that her attention seemed to unfailingly induce to figure out a polite way of saying no to her — or anyone else in their group who wanted to follow Riku, for that matter.

Much to his surprise, even Roxas hadn't protested. Hadn't said much of anything all night, actually, but still. Hayner had expected a snarky remark at the very least, with Riku being the idea's proposer.

Now, as they stood shivering by the edge of Hayner's property, he took a moment to eye the family dock, to think back to last summer vacation when everything had seemed so much simpler.

It was hard to summon an image of the fleeting summer months, of sun that offered genuine warmth, gently lapping lake water against metal dock posts, and the smell of moss and pine mingled with a spritz of bug repellant to keep mosquitos at bay. They were already well past winter's mid-afternoon sunset, and snow covered the surrounding trees; with the dock raised up out of the water for the duration of the cold season, and the family boat stowed away in off-site storage, the setting was a stark contrast that Hayner found hard to reconcile. While others talked in hushed tones around him, voices an audible teeth-chattering staccato, Roxas finally decided to break his own self-imposed silence by offering a few sage words of observation.

"This is boring as hell." He followed it up with a scowl.

For his part, Riku merely glanced at Roxas, expression impassive. By his side where he'd been glued for pretty much the entirety of the evening, Sora shot his cousin a conciliatory smile.

"It's not exactly shorts weather, that's for darn sure."

Next to Hayner, Olette was shivering as well, her breath misting the air in front of her, shoulder occasionally brushing against his arm through no fewer than six layers between the two of them. Just the same, the cold quickly gave way to a brief tingle of heat and Hayner found himself returning the gesture as subtly as possible. Out of the corner of his eye, just above the line of the scarf his face was half-buried under, Hayner noted that Riku and Sora seemed to be performing a similar choreography of clandestine arm-brushing.

Quickly, he redirected his gaze, decided not to comment or make a big deal about it in case he was misinterpreting on account of his own Olette-induced emotional confusion.

"Hey, guys."

Sora's voice rang out in its standard combination of enthusiastic and hope-filled. "Maybe we could move around a little. That'd probably keep us a smidge warmer." Taking a few steps toward Hayner, Sora came into view again, brows rising beneath a fleece beanie, and just visible above a wooly-thick scarf. "Do you think your neighbors would mind?"

Hayner shook his head. "Not if we don't make too much noise, I'm guessing." Even though he couldn't see the lower half of Sora's face, he noted the corresponding tapering of eye corners that implied he was smiling.

"Besides," he added, "they can't complain as long as we stay on the lake and off their property. It's a holiday. Plus tomorrow's Saturday."

When no one else offered up a better alternative beyond turning heel and going back inside to wait out impending midnight, their group started off, walking along a nearly invisible border where frozen lake water met private property boundaries. In truth, it really wasn't helping warm anyone up as far as Hayner could tell, since they were moving pretty slowly to avoid multiple slip-and-falls. With Olette walking next to him, occasionally still brushing against him, he also couldn't really say he minded though.

It was no surprise that it was Sora who was the most animated among them, with Selphie a close second. Both chattered and laughed as though the cold was only a minor nuisance. Both also slipped multiple times across the ice's opaque surface in their haste to talk to everyone, Kairi and Riku following closely behind to help them right themselves whenever feasible.

From Hayner's vantage point, Sora was gradually angling himself ever closer to Roxas who, per norm of late, was trailing behind at the tail end of their group.

Eventually, Sora seemed to steel himself enough to tug down his scarf away from his mouth and call out to him.

"Hey, cuz. I bet you can't spin on ice without skates on."

"No shit, Sherlock." With hardly a passing glance away from his phone screen, Roxas deflected the good-natured challenge, and what Hayner could see of Sora's happy-go-lucky expression crumbled in tandem.

Taking in the exchange, Hayner noted the corresponding glower Riku shot over toward Roxas without comment, simply filing it away along with other information about the two of them he'd been mentally compiling all evening. Something was beginning to piece itself together in his head, something that made him default to uncomfortable although he'd have been hard-pressed to give a logical reason why that was.

Scampering up to Sora, almost taking him out as her heel slipped on ice underfoot, Selphie made a wild swipe at his coat collar, by some miracle managing to find her equilibrium at the last possible second. She laughed it off a moment later like she hadn't just been four feet shy of almost landing on her head.

"Who needs fancy skating tricks," she yawped into the dead silence of the sky above them, and even though Hayner couldn't see Roxas' expression, he just knew his friend was scowling; he'd been lectured long ago that figure skating jumps and spins were called _elements_ (with a haughty sniff and upturned chin, no less), not 'tricks'. Undeterred, and probably wholly unaware of her egregious skating terminology faux pas, Selphie followed up her 'who needs skating tricks' spiel with, "when we can do butt slides instead!"

Without a word, Hayner cocked an eyebrow. Okay, so, they'd outgrown lame games like spin the bottle in ninth grade. But sliding on your tush across a frozen lake in the pitch dark of night? That was still a totally reasonable action to engage in, apparently.

With a delighted squeal from Selphie and good-natured hooted encouragement on Sora's part, Hayner watched as Selphie took a running start, then off-kilter skidded as she leaned back far enough to plop down onto the ice surface. She came to a gradual stop in the distance, a muted dot of ski coat sunshine yellow in the otherwise inky dark lakeside setting spread out before them.

Still grinning, Sora went next, his oversized boots clapping a muffled beat against the thick sheet of ice beneath him. To his credit, Sora managed to build up commendable speed with movements reminiscent of stroking on hockey skates, and Hayner took a moment to consider that the dual ventures of figure skating and hockey training probably gave him an uncontested advantage over Selphie.

As anticipated, Sora far outdistanced Selphie when he finally started butt-sliding. Given his speed at the outset and the dark shade of his navy ski coat, he soon slipped well beyond the limits of their night vision.

With Sora off in the distance, Selphie half-gliding, half-skidding after him, and everyone else trudging along in small groups at their own variable paces, Hayner figured now was as good a time as ever to see if he could get Olette into the frame of mind to offer some thoughts on what was going on between the two of them.

He turned to her, realizing only a moment later that he'd seriously miscalculated his ability to have a serious talk at this juncture of the evening.

"What the — _hey_!"

The far-off shout was followed by a quick slew of curse words and a smattering of indistinct, anger-tinged sentiments that came from a distinctly more female-sounding speaker.

Glancing between his friends, gaze lingering on Riku's concerned expression, Hayner began to sprint toward the voices in the distance, careful to keep his knees bent and weight slightly forward in an effort to avoid losing his balance and wiping out. From of the corner of his vision, he saw Roxas doing something similar, phone pocketed and movements faster, more vigorous, than Hayner had seen all evening. The sounds coming from his blind spot over one shoulder indicated Riku was probably not too far behind either.

Soon, Sora came into view, along with a handful of others, faces obscured by hoodies pulled up and out of their uniformly dark coats. Offered a hand by one of the strangers, Sora was just starting to steady himself by the time Riku caught up to Hayner and Roxas.

"I'm alright!" Sora called, brushing a dusting of snow and ice shavings off his jeans with both gloved hands. He turned toward the stranger nearest to him and added a sheepish, "sorry about that."

"Nah, dude, all good. Anything to get Larxene to shriek like a crazed twelve year old NSYNC fan is worth a few bruises."

Weirdly enough, the voice sounded familiar. As Hayner came to a stop next to Riku, and Roxas sidled slightly more off to one side to resume his antisocial distance quota, he squinted, trying to make out any distinguishing features beneath the shadows of the speaker's hood.

As though sensing his scrutiny, the speaker paused, craned his head a little, looked over at him.

"Hey there, you're one of TwiHo's varsity forwards, yeah?" The guy's two nearest companions looked over a moment later.

Hayner blinked, cold momentarily forgotten in lieu of the newfound spotlight that felt like it had just been aimed at him. The sound of multiple footfalls indicating the others were nearby was also throwing his concentration. Before he could form words to refute the incorrect portion of statement, Riku spoke up, expression still hinting at subtly troubled as he stole a glance at Sora.

"I am, yeah."

Mouth half open, Hayner snapped it shut. Oh. He wasn't even the person that guy had been referencing. Doy.

"Cool beans. I'm a goalie for Northstar's varsity team." The guy pulled back his hood just slightly, revealing tufts of sandy blond hair around his temples, then exhaled a long breath of mist into what little space remained between them.

Looking from Riku to the original speaker, Hayner found himself nodding to no one in particular. Oh yeah, he remembered now. This guy had done a local news interview with a few other Northstar team members after they'd won in an upset at State last year. That would make him a …senior now, probably. Hayner didn't really know a ton about Northstar students, although the school wasn't located all that far away from Twin Hollow Preparatory's campus. Northstar was a public school, serving the greater southwest metro area, with 'greater' being a bit of a stretch as concerned accurate word meaning. Hayner would've been surprised if their town had managed to exceed anything beyond a twelve thousand headcount last census, at most.

Still inscrutable, Riku's expression didn't change, not even when Sora scampered up to him, arms out and shoe treads skidding until Riku offered a hand to help steady him. Eventually, he looked back up at the goalie from Northstar to continue the conversation. "It's Demyx, right?"

"Yup! And you're Riku. I heard you've made some awesome plays so far this season. It's gonna be fun when we get to go head-to-head, I bet."

Riku nodded slightly but didn't say anything. As the rest of their group hovered nearby and chatted among themselves, Hayner finally spotted Roxas lingering to one side, close to one of the Northstar kids. Head down, phone back out, he still didn't seem to be actually talking to anyone though.

Following Hayner's gaze, Demyx craned his neck over one shoulder in Roxas' direction. "Axel's on the varsity team too, actually." He waved a hand off toward where Roxas had planted himself. "Only one who's not is Zexion over there. He's just home from college for a few weeks. Graduated last year." He nodded toward a shorter boy with a swath of dark hair covering half of his features, seated a few yards away on a fallen tree trunk by the lake's edge. "And Larxene, obviously."

Shooting Sora an apologetic look, Demyx seemed content to keep chattering. "She's our resident bitch, so don't mind the less than enthusiastic welcome when you crashed our little get-together."

Still eyeing Roxas, it took Hayner a moment longer to realize that the twin trails of breath misting up above the two students in the distance was smoke rather than more naturally occurring half frozen exhalations. His observation was followed by a resounding series of coughs on Roxas' part, a bit of amused laughter from the guy next to him.

Whose name was …Axel, Hayner reminded himself.

"He's a defenseman, right?" Hayner pointed over toward the two boys.

Sora's sudden snort drew Hayner's attention back to Riku, eyes finally trailing down to the shorter student by his side.

"More like a grinder, actually. I don't know what it is about girls and sports-related violence, but he's seriously popular."

"Yeah." Demyx grinned, then twisted a longer strand of hair between two flushed red fingers exposed to the air via the tips of his cotton glove cut-offs. "Girls love him. Right, Larxene?"

He was gifted with an unimpressed look and a decidedly unladylike, "fuck off."

Still grinning, Demyx leaned in toward the three of them, expression turning conspiratorial as he whispered an exaggerated, "they used to date but it didn't go all that well. Axel kinda-sorta bats for the other team, if you get what I'm saying. A few weeks with Larxene and he came out like gangbusters."

"Um, gross?" Coming up from behind Hayner's left shoulder, Pence wrinkled his nose and received a light slap from Olette who'd been trailing along next to him. Taking up the tail end of their group's processional, Selphie slid to a stop nearby, plopping down to a seated position in a move that was hard to interpret as more purposeful than accidental. Lowering themselves on either side of her, Tidus and Wakka settled down on the frozen lake surface as well, with Kairi opting to remain standing just slightly behind them.

Demyx shrugged at Pence, apparently nonplussed. "Ah, is it?"

The question hung in the air between them, felt awkward to Hayner, although Demyx didn't seem particularly fazed by either the implication of his inquiry or their resounding inability to provide a satisfactory answer.

It was Kairi who ultimately broke the silence, tactfully opting to change the subject, eyes traveling toward Larxene, smile tentative but friendly.

"I think I may have seen you at some of our games last year. Are you a cheerleader?"

As Demyx guffawed, Larxene turned, hauled off and punched him in the shoulder hard enough to elicit a wounded yelp.

"Does this face," Larxene extended two fingers to her temple, then lowered them to her chin in profile, "look like it's made of enough sugar and spice or whatever the fuck nice to flounce around verbally worshipping self-absorbed dicks on any kind of playing field?"

While Kairi stammered a string of unintelligible words, and even Riku adopted a look that seemed borderline offended, another voice chimed in from behind Demyx.

"Ignore her," a voice called. Leaning slightly to one side, Hayner saw Axel a few feet behind Demyx. "Larxene likes to get a rise out of pretty much anyone she encounters."

Yeah, he thought, unless you happen to be a straight-up flaming gay. Then all that female 'charm' just ends up going to waste...

Keeping the thought to himself as much as he did the acknowledgement that the only thing noticeably flaming about Axel was the color his hair was dyed, Hayner directed his attention to Roxas trailing a few steps behind Axel, cigarette still glowing red and held between a gloved index and middle finger. He took a moment to wonder if this was the first time his friend had ever tried smoking, and why now, in front of veritable strangers of all people.

"Unfortunately for the rest of us, she's got a natural talent for it."

The final pronouncement came from Zexion, off in the distance but apparently still within hearing range of their conversation. Did all public school students have such weird-ass names, Hayner took a second to wonder as he turned his attention toward Zexion. Under closer scrutiny, he could see a hardbound book resting on Zexion's lap. With only the faint light of neighboring houses giving off any tangible form of luminescence, Hayner had no real clue how it was possible to read at this time of night — or why anyone would even want to.

"If I can ask," Riku spoke up, his voice steady and calm amid the rise-and-fall tones of everyone else around him, "what are you all doing so far out here this late at night anyway?"

"Last I checked, pretty boy, this isn't private property." One side of Larxene's lips curled up into what seemed like a well-practiced sneer, and Hayner found himself impressed by how little the jab seemed to affect Riku's composure, the slight rise of one eyebrow an exclusive indicator that he'd even heard it.

Sora, on the other hand…

Hayner blinked, glanced up at Riku, then back down at Sora next to him, wondering if he'd imagined it. But nope, it was still there. Sora was practically shooting daggers at Northstar's resident bitch.

"We're just here to ring in the millennium, same as you guys, I'm guessing." Axel offered a shrug in conjunction with his words, Demyx nodding enthusiastic confirmation in front of him. "Even though Zexion over there keeps reminding us it's not technically a new century until 2001."

Having returned to squinting at his book, Zexion didn't deign to look up, merely raising a hand to indicate he'd heard Axel's comment, head bobbing slightly as though in agreement.

"Actually, we should check and see what time it is to make sure we don't miss it." Unbeknownst to Hayner, Olette had skirted around Pence while he'd been eyeballing Zexion. The proximity of her voice startled him, induced a mortifying flush into both cheeks, which he was quick to cover by turtling his neck into the folds of his scarf.

"Does anyone have a watch?" Glancing around, Olette's gaze fell on Hayner. She looked up, eyes smiling from beneath a dual-toned green hat. "Or a cell phone?"

"I, er—uh." In his haste to speak, Hayner bit the inside of his cheek, and in the quarter of a second it took the pain to register, he'd already gone through every swear word he could think of in English, then moved on to his grandparents' native Swedish. "Left mine back at the house," he mumbled, face still burning, eyes dropping toward his boots in an attempted blush coverup.

"It's 11:32."

Surprised to hear Roxas actually bothering to contribute, Hayner momentarily forgot himself and looked up, eyes returning to the cigarette between his friend's fingers before finally noticing the cell phone in his other hand.

Turning toward Axel and Larxene, Demyx bounced a little, rocking back to his heels, and by some miracle didn't slip straight onto his ass in the process of redistributing his weight back to the arches of his lace-up Dr. Martins. He gestured up and away from the lake, toward one of the public access paths that led back up to a neighborhood street.

"We should probably go grab the supplies, eh?"

From her cross-legged resting place between Wakka and Tidus, Selphie sat up straighter, hair bouncing along with the quirk of her head as her expression turned curious. "Supplies?"

"Oh, yeah." Demyx offered a toothy grin that from the looks of it Selphie found utterly beguiling. "We figured we'd ring in the new year with pots and pans and band instruments."

"Seriously?" Beside Selphie, Tidus looked up. "In this neighborhood? That's going to piss a lot of people off."

"Fuck every single one of 'em for sixty full seconds then." Shaking her head enough for her hood to fall back, Larxene made an unsuccessful attempt at smoothing down a few pieces of hair sticking out at nearly symmetrical upright angles above both narrowed eyes. "Rich people get upset about the lamest things anyway."

Behind her, Hayner saw Axel grin. What surprised him more was the hint of a smile tugging at one corner of Roxas' mouth in response to Larxene's comment.

Huh.

Looking momentarily thoughtful, Demyx nodded like he was coming to some long-sought revelation. "We've got extra. Maybe not for all of you." He surveyed the group of private school students as though performing a silent head count. "But some of you guys can share, if you want."

When no one initially responded, Demyx took a few steps in the direction of the shoreline. "And just in case we don't make it back here in time, we can bang shit down the street instead."

Yeah, Hayner thought, the neighbors were sure going to love that brilliant alternative.

So, it was butt-sliding on ice and banging pots and pans at midnight to ring in the new millennium. Somehow instead of becoming more mature mid-way through his sophomore year, Hayner was starting to feel like they were all regressing to the status of first year middle schoolers.

Yet, somehow, that didn't stop him from letting a smiling Olette grab his hand, and he didn't stop once to protest about being subsequently pulled along toward the public access path, Kairi and Selphie and the others following closely behind.

Oh well, Hayner figured, stealing a glance at Olette's gloved hand wrapped comfortably around his. There would always be another opportunity to start acting more his true age come morning — assuming Roxas turned out to be wrong about Internet D-Day, that is, and the world was still spinning along on its proper, predestined course.

* * *

 **A/N** : FYI for non-US readers: Sadie Hawkins is a high school dance event where it's traditional for the girls to ask out the guys. Some schools (translation: mine) encourage students to dress in matching attire, as if high school dances aren't already awkward enough.


	2. Chapter 2

The walk back to Demyx's car was punctuated by quiet chatter, by the measured appearances of ghostly breaths made visible in the cold and two meandering trails of cigarette smoke. As if by some unspoken agreement, everyone was keeping their voices hushed, an occasional spike in spoken decibels on Demyx's part the sole exception. From animated hand movements to a speaking volume teetering precariously close to a tone deaf garage rock band, everything about the Northstar goalie seemed drastically amplified, and Hayner had a sneaking suspicion the term 'indoor voice' was unfamiliar to Demyx, or possibly something he didn't think applied to him.

While Hayner walked alongside Olette near the back of their procession, Selphie and Kairi were talking about upcoming second trimester elective classes. The scope of that topic soon exhausted, they moved on to a discussion of their new pre-game cheerleading warmup routine. Although he wasn't invested enough to ask for clarification, Hayner had to assume it was something performed off-ice so no one killed themselves or got a skate blade through either orbital. Meanwhile, Demyx had gravitated toward Tidus, Wakka, and Pence, along with Riku and Sora, who still hadn't left one another's side, and was talking about Northstar's win at State last season, Larxene occasionally interjecting with a snarky observation. Zexion trailed along beside them, not necessarily ignoring the conversation but also not really contributing, book held up close to his face and in the active process of destroying his eyesight, from Hayner's vantage point.

Then there was Roxas. Much to his surprise, Roxas walking along off to one side of their group still hovering around Northstar's grinder, for the first time this evening actually engaging in a way that required more than one or two word responses on his part.

For a time, Hayner listened as the two talked different forms of ice sports, as Axel called skating spins tricks and Roxas notably failed to correct him. Hayner also watched, occasionally stealing glances to his right, taking in a head of gaudy red that he vaguely remembered being visible at the edges of a hockey helmet as he watched their teams compete against one another a few times last season. He also heard Axel offer another cigarette, saw Roxas accept it, watched as his best friend cupped a gloved hand and slowed his pace enough to let Axel lean in close and provide a light for it.

"They seem to be getting along well."

Once again, Olette's voice startled him and Hayner had to force himself to keep walking without stumbling, stuttering, looking like a total moron, or a combination of all three. Dragging his eyes away from Roxas and Axel, he turned to her, expression schooled to neutral as she looked up and offered a smile.

"It's nice to see him enjoying himself." She inclined her head over toward Roxas, Hayner's gaze following a beat later. "He's had a rough couple of months."

Rough...

The word echoed in Hayner's mind, its meaning displaced by enduring distraction in light of the fact that Olette was still looking at him.

Roxas' Internet apocalypse hype-up was the first thing that came back to him, and Hayner had to exert an impressive level of self-control not to outright roll his eyes. The comments about Sectionals from the drive to his house returned next, then the realization about how much had changed for his friend since Sora had given up figure skating in exclusive pursuit of varsity hockey. From there, his gaze traveled up, away from Roxas, until it came to a halting pause the instant he caught a glimpse of Sora and Riku in front of him.

It wasn't just ice skating that Sora had given up. Deep down, Hayner'd already known that. The change had also encompassed most of the free time he would've typically spent hanging out with his cousin, time that it now seemed obvious had been reallocated to Riku.

There was nothing wrong with branching out and making new friends, Hayner told himself, all the while trying to reconcile that silent declaration with the image of Axel smoking with Roxas still preserving itself in the back of his visual memory.

But something about the connection Sora and Riku had been so quick to form seemed differently charged than the friendships Sora had with others. It was something about the way Sora looked at Riku, and the way Riku sometimes looked back at him. Hayner recognized the expressions, found them so starkly familiar, mostly because they reminded him of the way he was pretty sure he'd started looking at Olette from the day after Sadie Hawkins a few weeks back straight on forward to present.

He felt a nudge, looked over at Olette, and wondered if she could identify the nerves behind his own carefully schooled expression. He wondered if she noticed the way the everything around them seemed subtly different when the two of them were together.

Brows rising as though she were expecting something, Hayner found himself staring back, found himself toying with the possibility that she was performing the subtle art of female intuition and was just waiting for him to bring up the topic that'd been on his mind virtually every waking minute since early December.

He remembered a second later that he'd never responded to her comment about Roxas.

Crapballs.

"Yeah. I guess you're right," he finally uttered. Although she didn't comment on it, his response was a day late, probably well over a dollar short, and Hayner had the good sense to be embarrassed by how easily thoughts of Olette had distracted him. Again.

Reaching the street, Demyx started sprinting — scratch that, he was _skipping_ — unmindful of the ice underfoot. The guy also happened to be the luckiest human in existence since, somehow, he had yet to appear unsteady or at risk of slipping. The destination in question was a Dodge Caravan, boxy in its wood-paneled exterior, with an early 80s make date that Hayner figured gave it a fifty-fifty chance of being older than him. It stood in stark contrast to the brand new Durango his parents had gotten him the moment he'd turned sixteen, just another not-so-subtle difference between public and private school kids in their area.

As Demyx dug into his coat pocket and emerged with a set of keys, he turned to everyone approaching and jangled them for emphasis. "Alright, you guys. Line up. It's first come, first serve."

Glancing at Hayner, Olette dropped his hand and stepped toward the van, pausing long enough for him to catch up and follow. As embarrassingly sentimental as it felt to acknowledge, the lack of hand contact was more than a little bit of a downer. Determined not to comment on it or consider the stupid feeling further, Hayner picked up his pace and they headed toward the back of the van together.

The line was less of an organized one-by-one setup than a double-digit high schooler pile-up around the vehicle's trunk.

"Slight amendment for the newbs!" Demyx's voice was boisterous, shrill enough to carry to the closest residences. "I've got dibs on the sitar, because duh. Everything else is fair game though."

Before Hayner could think to worry about the excess noise — or ponder what the crap a sitar was, for that matter — Olette was passing him a generously sized stir fry wok and retrieving a pair of metallic cooking tongs for herself.

Nearby, Demyx slipped a fabric strap over his head, which was connected to what looked like a guitar on a year's worth of street drugs. He adjusted the strap across his chest, the bottom-heavy instrument resting in a diagonal across the whole of his back. Gaze falling on the two of them, he offered what by now seemed like his trademark-wide grin and nodded toward their kitchenware. "Good choices. That'll make a boatload of noise."

Surveying the group, Hayner noted others with pots and pans similar to his. Most had paired up the larger cookware with some form of utensil to bang against it. There were handfuls of smaller forks and knives, even a few spatulas. Axel had a pair of plastic chopsticks to Roxas' frying pan, and Sora came away with a large metal soup spoon looking quite pleased with himself, no doubt a complement to the multi-holed colander Riku already had in his possession.

"Nokia boy!" Demyx bellowed. "I need a time check."

If Hayner had expected a sarcastic comment at being associated with a piece of technology Roxas wasn't even a huge fan of, he was well off the mark. Securing his cigarette between pursed lips, expression notably lacking in irritation Hayner had become accustomed to of late, Roxas fished out his phone, clicked it on, and studied it for a moment before responding.

"11:49."

" _Uffda_." Looking frazzled, Demyx ran his hands through his hair, fingers pulling on a few longer tufts at the top of his head. "We're gonna be cutting it close to get back." He took a few sprinted steps forward before twirling back toward the rest of the group, eyes on Roxas specifically.

"It's your job to keep us updated, okay?"

Not waiting for confirmation, Demyx made a grab for the person closest to him, which happened to be Zexion. Tugging him along by the forearm, Zexion let himself be pulled, offering a sigh while simultaneously securing the book he'd been carrying under his free arm.

"You know, wristwatches work just as well as cell phones for telling the time," Hayner heard him intone. Demyx's initial response was merely a short laugh as he picked up the pace, encouraging others to follow as he half-walked, half-jogged back toward the public access path.

"Next time I'll make sure I ask you instead then, cutie."

At the comment, Hayner almost choked mid-swallow. Nearby, he heard the crunching of shoes against frozen grass, followed up by Pence's voice announcing an uncontested, "Northstar students are friggin' weirdos."

Silently agreeing, Hayner couldn't help but note that Sora had been just as quick to reach for Riku's hand as though in mimicry of Demyx's earlier action.

With Olette on his right, Pence trailing a few steps behind him on the left, Hayner stared at the two boys in front of him, the connection via their hands more specifically. There was a lightness in Sora's step that seemed out of place with the churning of Hayner's own unsettling thoughts on how out of place it looked to see not one but two pairs of boys touching one another, however platonically.

"They're cute together, don't you think?"

Hayner glanced to his right, saw Olette looking up at him, eyes wide and expressive, and probably the sole reason for the sudden fluttering of nerves now forming in his stomach. With a feeling of increasing unease, he watched Sora pull Riku off to one side of their trail, then off down a subsidiary path. That way also led to the lake, as far as Hayner knew, but wound through another handful of residential properties as well, which was probably why Demyx hadn't chosen it in his haste to make up time.

Pence pulled up alongside them, shoulders hunched, nose shoved into the folds of his scarf.

"What _I_ think is they're liable to get whaled on by someone getting the wrong idea if they're not careful."

"Wrong idea?" Olette's expression was a picture of innocent confusion.

"You know…" Pence's voice came out muffled, a result of his unwillingness to pull down his scarf and expose more of his face to the cold air around them.

"He means folks'll think they're gay or something," Hayner offered.

"Oh." Olette's expression shifted to dubious. "Well, so what if they are?"

As Sora and Riku disappeared out of sight, Hayner discovered he really didn't have an answer for her on that one.

Pence, on the other hand…

"Then they're liable to get beat on, like I already said."

"That's awful." Olette sounded affronted. "They're just holding hands."

Ahead of them, Demyx reached the shoreline. Hayner watched as he turned to Zexion, for once speaking low enough that he couldn't make out what was being said. Raising his forearm up in front of him, Zexion pulled back his coat sleeve, looked down at his wrist, then offered a reply, which Demyx amplified for the rest of them.

" _Three_ minutes. Hurry up if you wanna be on the water by the time the clock strikes!"

With a light shrug as they increased their pace, Pence offered a parting thought before sprinting off. "It is what it is. I guess it's a good thing both are athletes with some decent fighting experience."

"And have lots of friends to back them up."

As Pence neared the shoreline, Hayner craned his neck behind one shoulder. The assertion had come from Kairi, words clear as day while three mittened fingers held her knit scarf beneath her chin.

By her side, Selphie's eyes flashed as she bobbed her head in agreement. "Yeah."

Although they didn't speak, Hayner saw Tidus and Wakka nodding too. Silently, he wondered if Roxas could be counted among their numbers if it ever came down to Sora needing someone to come to his defense, given the tenuous nature of their friendship at present.

Feeling a small, delicate hand slide itself into his own, Hayner didn't need to look over to know it was Olette. He also had no issue identifying the corresponding thrill of realizing they were touching again.

Without a word, they picked up the pace, slowing only to secure their footing as they exited the path and made their way back out away from the shoreline and onto the thick sheet of frozen lake water.

"One minute!" Demyx again. Then, "Zex'll start the countdown when we get to ten seconds. Prepare yourselves, _compadres_!"

As he spoke, Demyx adjusted the strap on his oddball instrument, reversed its position, and flexed the cold-reddened tips of his fingers against its strings. Gripping the wok a little tighter, Hayner watched as his friends all raised their various cookware noisemakers, then listened as Zexion uttered the last double-digit second remaining in the 1990s.

He got to eight before others started joining in. Seven, and the countdown rose in an enthusiastic crescendo.

"Six, five…"

Looking up at him, Olette smiled, and Hayner felt her light squeeze of his hand.

"Ready?" she asked. "We don't even need fake school dance mistletoe this time since the rules are different."

"Four, three…"

Hayner blinked, then glanced down at her.

"What?"

"Two, ONE!"

As pots began to clang, as an odd vibrato of plucked sitar strings and resounding shouts of, "happy new year!" rose into the air, Olette leaned forward, the arches of her snow boots rising until she was just tall enough to brush Hayner's lips with her own.

It took him a second longer to register the action, for his cheeks to flush with a surge of semi-flummoxed heat, before he was kissing her back, unmindful of the hooting and cat calls that followed, or of the fact that Demyx and Zexion were only a few yards away, kissing each other with the same sort of chaste enthusiasm.

Quite suddenly, it didn't matter a whole lot where Sora and Riku had disappeared, the implications of why they'd left even less so, or that he was just now beginning to notice that he hadn't seen Axel or Roxas since they'd exited the path. As Olette's arms wrapped around his waist through six sum layers of winter attire, as both lingered with foreheads inclined and touching even after the kiss had ended, Hayner felt one of Olette's arms shift just enough so she could clang her tongs against his stir fry wok a few times, then followed it up with a quiet laugh.

"So far, it seems like I have to start everything in this relationship."

Although the tone was chiding, her eyes were bright, smiling, illuminated by the dim moonlight above them.

"Maybe in the new millennium, you'll be more quick on the uptake."

o - o

Thirty seconds before midnight and they were already kissing, mouths pressed together, quivering lips a result of the physical heat passed between them and bone-chilling cold, both.

It'd been Sora's idea to take an alternate route to the water, Riku allowing himself to be tugged along without a word of protest at first. It was only when they'd arrived at a private dock raised up out of the water for the season, only when Demyx called the one minute warning, voice traveling from a considerable distance across the icy span of lake they'd only just arrived at, that Riku spoke up.

"I don't think we're going to make it in time."

Hopping from the narrow path down under the dock, hand still clasping Riku's and encouraging him to follow, Sora turned, eyes shining, breath misting the few inches that separated them.

"I know."

Pressing himself against Riku's chest, Sora reached up, mittened hands cupping either side of his face, coaxing an inclination of the taller boy's head down to his waiting mouth.

It only took another handful of seconds for Riku to find himself on the ground, back against the shore's embankment, Sora still kissing, the fabric of his mittens still caressing his face and neck, knees bent and spread out on either side of his own straightened legs.

They'd never done this in public before, not even when they could be somewhat confident that they were alone. They'd always been so careful about how others might interpret even the subtlest of their interactions, had even developed a vocabulary of veiled language and double meanings to communicate via text message, just in case someone else happened to read them.

Maybe it was because Sora was among friends and thought they could be trusted. Maybe it was hearing about the Northstar grinder's own purported orientation that'd done it, or seeing Demyx grab Zexion's arm on their way to the water. Whatever his unstated reasoning, Sora had been much more uninhibited tonight in his interactions with Riku, from brushing shoulders when he thought no one was looking to fluttering fingers with casual familiarity against the palm of Riku's gloved hand.

Apparently, this newfound brazenness also encompassed entwining their fingers and pulling him down a different path on their journey to the lake. Apparently, it meant surprising Riku with kisses, and straddling him in a spot that, although adequately dark, was definitely still viewable and public for someone to happen upon them.

It wasn't that he didn't like Sora's gestures of affection; far from it, Riku had never felt more wanted, more desired, than he did spending time alone with Sora, never more right and at peace with himself either. It'd been a long time coming, lonely years of taking girls to dances, of watching his friends brag about stolen kisses and jump in and out of relationships while he'd remained on the sidelines, trying his best to fit in while watching their effortless actions and wondering, sometimes even hating his own inability to enjoy the same sorts of dating games.

Then Sora had appeared, had made the varsity hockey team so young. Sora and come and changed everything. In many ways, then, it rankled that Riku now found himself rather unsuccessfully trying to stave off the sudden assault of all-encompassing, nauseating agitation that threatened to engulf him.

He'd been in so many athletic situations that actually warranted nervousness, had competed in major playoff games and down-to-the-wire matches where his teammates were relying on him to come through in the final few minutes with a miracle move. In this way, Riku was no stranger to pressure, whether introduced by others or self-imposed.

Nothing brought with it the kind of anxiousness associated with the possibility of the wrong person catching them both in a vulnerable position like where they were in now.

A year and three months. That was all it'd been since the stations had erupted with news that'd made his breath catch in the choking confines of a newly tense throat. That was how long since he'd become convinced he was never destined to live a normal life, or at least one that followed the same route as those of his straight classmates.

And it hadn't been enough time for him to forget about Laramie, not enough temporal distance to rid his mental vision of that smiling black and white image of a boy only a few years older than he and Sora were now — or to suppress the growing realization that trusting the wrong person could mean long-lasting consequences for them both.

Riku wasn't afraid to fight, didn't lack confidence that he would be able to one-on-one defend himself. No. It was Sora he worried about, Sora who he knew he couldn't always be around to keep safe.

Open and friendly and sometimes naive, it was Sora who'd thought nothing of holding his hand at every opportunity this evening, or of sharing his newfound revelation of identity with a cousin he trusted implicitly just a few months ago.

He'd shared their mutual secret with a cousin who was mostly no longer talking to him, or being a dick about it when he did, from Riku's view. It made him furious every time he stopped to think about how much Roxas' stony silence weighed on Sora's disposition, which usually engendered such cheerfulness, such undiluted joy at every other aspect of higher schooler life.

In truth, the anger toward Roxas was so starkly prominent because it was an easy place to focus in lieu of Riku's myriad associated fears. In truth, it was far more concerning to think about who else might find out as a result of Sora's admission to Roxas. Roxas he could handle, or ignore as had been his aim every time the little shit said something snarky or offered up a veiled insult under his breath. It was no secret that rumors spread fast in a small town, and this was the kind of gossip Riku particularly didn't want to get passed around.

Not by Roxas. Not by anyone.

It also wasn't something he wanted Sora to have to endure on his own once he graduated next year and went away to college. If there was one thing Riku understood, it was being surrounded by friends, being praised as an athlete and envied for the social popularity that came with it, only to know deep down that no one truly knew him, that he would be unequivocally on his own if he ever considered being honest about himself.

Whooping cheers sounded in the distance and Riku tilted his head to look over Sora's shoulder, eyes darting, surveying carefully, making certain no one was looking their way. The abrasive sound of pots and pans and silverware colliding together drifted over to them next, followed by the observation that Hayner and Olette were sucking unrepentant face in plain view without fear of reprisal from those around them.

No surprise about those two, Riku thought. They'd been making puppy dog eyes at each other all throughout the evening.

But, wait.

He looked again, this time more carefully.

Was that...

Riku blinked, not entirely convinced what he was seeing was accurate.

Demyx and _Zexion_?

Above him, Sora shifted his weight, the soup spoon following a moment later to clang against the colander Riku had long since abandoned by his side in favor of placing tentative hands around Sora's coat-covered hips.

Forcing his gaze away from the sight of two Northstar boys celebrating mere feet away from Hayner and Olette, Riku looked back up in front of him, took in cold-matted brown hair under the fleece of a beanie and blue eyes that tapered naturally along each side every time Sora smiled.

"Whatcha thinking about?"

There were so many ways he could answer, so many comments about what he'd just seen taking place across the lake, and the temptation to utter the name of a boy not so much older than them who'd been attending school in a small Wyoming town not all that different from Minneapolis' suburban south metro where they found themselves now.

All these thoughts, and every confusing feeling, caught in his throat. Each forced a thick swallow, the remnant berry of chapstick on Sora's lips still lingering in his mouth.

"Hockey," he said instead, voice quiet. "It's just a few more days until we start practicing again."

He worried that the answer might disappoint Sora, thought maybe he'd been searching for a more meaningful response. Just, something, maybe anything, other than sports, Riku figured.

Despite his concern, a bright smile emerged, chill lips subsequently nuzzling, nipping gently against his neck in the seconds before Sora slid off his lap and lowered himself to a seated position beside him.

"We'll get to see each other every single day again then, right?"

Stealing a glance at Sora out of the corner of one eye, Riku swallowed again, the feeling of uneasiness about revealed mutual secrets still warring against encroaching warmth at the thought that Sora was looking forward to seeing him during hockey practice on a daily basis. The feeling was mutual.

"Right."

The word brought with it a sense of resounding calm, and Riku felt some of the tension he'd been holding all evening dissolve. Eyes returning to the group in the distance, Riku quirked his head, expression turning considerably more cynical.

"I was also wondering what kind of insult 'pretty boy' is."

Next to him, Sora snorted, breath a quick burst of cloudy air pluming out in front of them both. "It's a lame one, that's what it is."

With a small smile, Riku leaned over, brushed shoulders with Sora. "I think you took more offense at it than I did."

"Yeah, well." Pushing himself up to his feet, Sora shrugged a little, then brushed the layer of crusted ice from where it'd accumulated on his jeans. "It's too bad it's not PC to beat up girls, that's all I'm saying. Otherwise her ass would've been grass."

A silvery eyebrow rose at the comment as Riku looked up at the determined expression Sora was now sporting. "And you're the lawnmower in this scenario, I take it?"

The expression ceded to a wide smile. It was a look that never failed to permeate the wall Riku had always been so adept at constructing to counter the prospect of revealing personal thoughts or feelings.

"Oh, you bet. One hundred percent, definitely."

Glancing toward the group still noisemaking and goofing off in the distance, Sora offered another toothy grin. "And you'd be the janitor mopping up the slop when she beat me to a bloody pulp before I managed to get half an insult out. Did you _see_ how hard she hit Demyx in the shoulder? Talk about leaving bruises."

He turned, sprinted a few steps further, then stopped to wave his soup spoon in the air above his fleecy hat. "Now c'mon. Let's catch up with the others. I want to see if Roxas is still hanging out with that grinder."

At the mention of his cousin, Sora's expression grew wistful, and Riku took a moment to wonder just how many positive thought reserves Sora had at his disposal before Roxas' continued iciness found purchase and started to fester.

An instant later, the expression vanished. Sora was looking at him and smiling again.

"'Cause, seriously. A figure skating smoker — whoda thunk? Maybe the world really _is_ coming to an end and Roxas was right all along."

Without another word, Sora turned and took off. Slipping and sliding and skidding his way out toward friends, both Northstar new and longterm-childhood, Riku kept his eyes on Sora, then pushed himself to standing. He moved to follow a boy who'd never failed to make him rethink everything he knew about himself, and about his life, each and every day longer they spent with each other.

o - o

"So, why are you looking at your phone every ten seconds? Tell me again."

Glancing up and away from the pixellated Nokia clock face, Roxas was tempted to offer a shrug as his sole form of answer. It tended to irk people like Hayner when he became non-responsive, yeah, but it was also effective in getting them to leave him alone or drop a subject.

That was just the rub though. Roxas wasn't sure he wanted Axel to do either.

As the rest of their group continued down toward the lakeshore, as Sora not so subtly directed Riku down an alternate path, Roxas slowed his pace and let the others go on ahead, then trudged over to a wrought-iron bench at the edge of the trail. He brushed a layer of snow off the flat surface, then sat, noisemaker frying pan placed between both feet and watching as Axel slid his pair of drumstick-reminiscent chopsticks into one of his back pockets.

"You've heard of Y2K, right?"

A few feet away, Axel lit his third cigarette, expression thoughtful as he took a long nicotine drag.

"That's the computer bug thing everyone's been freaking out about."

As he spoke, Roxas watched the lazy curl of smoke wreaths float up and away from Axel's upturned face. There was something almost hypnotic about the way Axel spoke, about the way he subtly moved while speaking, from the tilt of his chin and the narrowing of intelligent eyes as he considered the question to the faintest rise of one side of his lips.

Roxas nodded. "Yeah."

Another drag, another plume of smoke, and Axel shrugged. "So, that's it? You're just checking to see if your phone's still working in, what, T-minus three minutes, give or take a few seconds?"

A bristle of defensiveness rose up from his lower back, and Roxas scowled into the empty space between Axel and himself.

"It's about more than just cell phones." Although making an effort to curb his frustration, there was no mistaking the testy sentiment in the tone he'd just answered with. "It's about technology failing on a massive scale. Like, airplanes use computers too, you know? Maybe even bombs."

"Bombs," Axel echoed, one brow rising along with the corner of his mouth.

"Bombs. Yes."

Bracing the bench with the flats of his hands, fingers curling over the edge and shoulders hunched, Roxas looked up at Axel, expression somber, trying to convey the seriousness of the impending technological disaster. "No one knows what's going to happen. That's what's scary about it."

"No one ever knows what's going to happen in the future, if you want to be technical. You didn't know you were going to meet me and my friends tonight, and we're not all that scary." Expression turning arch, still looking off down the path where everyone else had disappeared, Axel chuckled a little to himself. "Larxene possibly excepted."

Before Roxas could think of a convincing counter argument, green eyes turned, fixed themselves squarely on him. The scrutiny was light, more curious than severe; nevertheless, Roxas found himself rooted in place under the weight of Axel's gaze.

"And bombs concern an ice skater how exactly? Explain that one to me."

"Figure skater," Roxas automatically corrected.

With a forming grin, Axel approached, sat himself down next to Roxas. Even seated, the height difference was easily perceivable, Axel's knees extending a good six inches further beyond his, two thin shoulders covered by a faux leather jacket in line with Roxas' own eyes, or maybe just his nose if he sat up as straight as possible.

"My bad. _Figure_ skater it is, then."

The words came slowly, offered up in an assured, milky drawl that Roxas found himself wishing he could equal in self-confidence, even if just by half. They also sent a prickle of heat up the back of his neck, reminded him of the way Riku looked at Sora when he thought no one else was watching.

In the two minutes left until everything fell apart, something already broken within him began to reform. Bolstered by the nonchalant way Axel was looking at him, it began to rebuild itself into something new, if not entirely yet whole.

It was something about himself that Roxas had inherently always known, something that he'd mentally sparred, waging a silent war with every mutinous thought or action that slipped its way out through carefully maintained mental fortifications and threatened to expose him to everyone else.

He'd been so good at exuding indifference, in keeping everything together, compartmentalizing the personal and private and storing it away from that which was socially acceptable to outwardly do or say.

Then Sora had gone and revealed the same truth to him in confidence, and in such a rawly honest and effortless way. Instead of seeing it as an encouraging opening and following suit, Roxas had stifled his own revelation, had repressed it and punished Sora for being the braver of the two of them. He'd spoken to his cousin subsequently, but only when social convention required it, had otherwise ignored every call and email, even down to each last text message until his phone's inbox began sending him warnings that it would soon be full.

He hadn't picked up the phone calls, or looked at any texts or emails, didn't want to hear what else Sora had to say on the matter.

Yet somehow still, he longed to talk about it, maybe not to Axel, but to someone who wouldn't judge or reject him. In the past, that someone had usually been Sora, sometimes Hayner. In his mind, and for this subject, it could be neither.

Really, all he wanted was someone he could trust just to listen, someone who would offer support over condemnation. The knowledge that he had neither scared Roxas more than he wanted to acknowledge.

"It's just as hard as hockey, you know," he spoke up, forcing down the rise of unwanted feelings he still didn't know how to reconcile with the reality of small town high schooler life. Although he kept his gaze trained forward, Roxas could still sense when Axel turned his eyes toward him again.

When that subtle shift in focus wasn't followed by another form of immediate response, Roxas continued talking, this time veritably rambling.

"Skating requires the same sort of stamina, jump technique takes years to learn, and it's not easy making it look like what you're doing is effortless at the end of a four minute program. Skating's hard, but people make fun of it and say it's girly because of the music and costuming, which is a total load of bull."

He wasn't sure why he was ranting about this; beyond a few good-natured jokes offered sparingly throughout the evening, Axel hadn't done or said anything that'd implied he looked down on the sport. As much as Roxas didn't want to admit it, this probably also had something to do with Sora and his newly perceived masculinity for choosing to pursue hockey. He was the only one who had to endure gay jokes now, when before they'd been able to laugh them off together.

One leg crossing over the other, Axel leaned back, long fingers reaching into the pocket of his jeans. "I know." Despite the rant he'd just had to sit through, his voice was calm. "I've seen you compete before. And I'd even be willing to concede it's harder than hockey since you guys don't wear padding."

"Wait." Taken aback by one admission more than the other, Roxas glanced at him, watched as his hand emerged from his jeans pocket with a small plastic container. "You've seen me compete?"

"Mm-hmm." Axel nodded. "That figure skating version of a qualifying playoff was all over the papers, so I decided to come check it out and see what a hotshot you were myself." Axel's grin rose in tandem with an extended hand, palm up. "Want a Tic Tac?"

Eyes widening, face soon burning with the realization that Axel had seen him tank a triple salchow in a moment of mortifying clumsiness, Roxas looked away, gaze dropping back down to his phone. For once, it wasn't to check the time but rather out of the want, maybe need, to look somewhere other than at the boy smiling so foxily back at him.

"No, thanks."

He heard the rattle of Axel's breath mint container, saw the heel of his dark lace-up boots as they ground what remained of his own cigarette dropped a second ago to their feet, heard Demyx bellow out a one minute warning that set his molars to a slow, aching grind.

What he hadn't been expecting throughout all of this was a shift in Axel's weight, or the subsequent feeling of lips against the side of his face.

Thoughts running through every single possibility for Axel's newfound proximity, seeking a logical reason for the cool spark of lips against increasingly flushed skin, Roxas froze, ultimately conceding that there couldn't be any other reason beyond the outright and obvious.

But this couldn't be happening. He hadn't given any outward indications that he was attracted to…

Lips moved from his cheek up closer to one ear, Axel's breath sending a shiver down Roxas' shoulders as warm air reached him, then frosted against his skin at the behest of a windchill uninterested in making gendered distinctions between those offering affectionate gestures within the scope of its seasonal realm.

His unfinished thought dissolved, scattered like snow flurries in a gust of wind, the scene around him fading in and out of focus. Celebratory sounds in the distance suddenly muted until the only two people who even existed for him were sitting on an icy-cold lakeside bench in suburban Minnesota, and the only thing that mattered was that Axel remained close to him.

He did. For a moment, the only sound was their measured breathing, supplemented by the indistinct visual haze of their corresponding exhales. Axel lingered a second longer; then, voice nearly inaudible despite how close he still was, he spoke to Roxas in a whisper.

"Is this okay?"

With words so quietly uttered, Roxas couldn't tell if they were being posed with uncertainty so much as an air of breathless expectancy.

"Because, if not, I can—"

Not waiting for Axel to finish, Roxas turned to him, and lips met lips. The kiss was tentative, innocent and investigative, as well as short-lived. But in that moment of mouth against willing mouth, and Roxas' gloved hands seeking two others in a neighboring lap, a feeling of hopefulness formed, however minute and as yet undefined. The world seemed to shrink momentarily smaller, its unfair prejudices growing more foreseeably manageable. The hooting and cheering in the distance didn't even register until both of them began to shiver, cold lips pressed one final time together. They both pulled away from each other, the hint of Axel's earlier grin still lingering, Roxas more surprised and wide-eyed, but determined not to look away.

It was Axel who stood first, eyes never leaving Roxas as he took a few steps away from the bench and back toward the path.

"Well, here we are." Demeanor once again easygoing, he waggled an eyebrow at Roxas, still seated and emotionally reeling in silence on the bench. "The moment of truth is upon us."

Roxas blinked, face a blank canvas of incomprehension until Axel gestured toward his phone.

Oh.

 _Oh_.

Sucking in his lower lip, still savoring a remnant of smoky peppermint that had come from a mouth other than his, Roxas shifted the frying pan still nestled between his feet, then moved to press the power button on his phone.

 _12:02am  
_ _January 1, 2000_

He looked up, stared at Axel, but said nothing, just watched as two brows rose simultaneously in patient expectancy.

"So, is the world as we know it over?"

With a light shake of his head that no more answered Axel's question than revealed his true thoughts, Roxas pushed himself up. His phone was working, which was as good a sign as any that technology was running as usual. Still, something about the way Axel had posed his question made him want to answer in the affirmative.

Because, in a way, the world as he knew it had just crumbled at its foundation, and he'd been left surveying ruins he now felt inspired to rebuild into something similar to what it'd once been. This time though, there'd be improvements, he decided. This was a new world he'd figure out how to build up by the foundation into something more solid and secure for himself, maybe even for others like him.

"Something is definitely over."

It wasn't a refutation of Axel's rhetorical question, just the plain, simple truth.

This time when Axel looked at him, it was Roxas who smiled. Mimicking the expression, somehow managing to reinforce it with more inherent confidence, Axel turned toward the path that led down to the water.

Retrieving the pan and moving to follow, Roxas stopped after a few steps, and looked down at the phone in his hand. This time, his focus was on something other than an impending date and clock face, on someone he'd been turning his back to for months now, specifically.

Nearby, Axel paused, turned to regard Roxas as he fiddled with his phone, fingers hovering over unfamiliar keys with no fewer than three alphabetized letters per button.

"You coming?"

The inquiry held no implication of impatience, and Roxas looked up, smile still lingering on his face like an unspoken promise.

"Yeah," he said. "Go on ahead, and I'll catch up. I have a quick text I need to send off first."

* * *

 **A/N** : Riku's thoughts on Laramie, Wyoming reference a real event that took place in October 1998. Later deemed a hate crime, and ultimately paving the way for federal recognition of hate crimes perpetuated on the basis of sexual orientation in the US, Matthew Shepard's death had a profound impact on my own decision not to come out as a teenager growing up in a small town during the late 90s. In 2014, Laramie became the first city in Wyoming to pass an LGBT nondiscrimination ordinance, almost sixteen years after Shepard's murder.


End file.
